Sheffield celebrates ambassador programme’s 10th anniversary

Sheffield’s conference market is worth £113m and the ambassador programme has brought in events worth £30m

28/11/2017

Pictured: Professionals gathered at the University of Sheffield’s Firth Hall for the Sheffield conference ambassador dinner

Sheffield’s conference ambassador programme has celebrated its 10th anniversary. Professionals from the fields of academia, medicine, arts and science gathered at the University of Sheffield’s Firth Hall for the Sheffield conference ambassador dinner, an annual event that celebrates the conference advocates who help bring large scale business events to the city.

Sheffield’s conference market is estimated to be worth £113 million to the city and the ambassador programme alone has brought in events valued close to £30m to the local economy over the last six years. The programme, which is run by Marketing Sheffield (part of Sheffield City Council), aims to boost business tourism even further and encourage the city’s leading lights to bring their industry’s biggest and best meetings to Sheffield.

Emma France of Marketing Sheffield said: “It’s easy to forget the impact conferencing has on Sheffield as we work year-round to support our ambassadors in bringing some incredible events to the city. But these figures show just important they are to our local economy.

“As our 10th anniversary celebrations come to an end, we’re looking ahead to an even brighter future of industry-leading events being held in Sheffield.”

The headline speaker at this year’s anniversary dinner was Marcus du Sautoy, Simonyi professor for the public understanding of science and professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford.

Ambassadors Matthew Malek, lecturer in experimental particle physics at the University of Sheffield, and Marta Cohen, consultant paediatric pathologist at Sheffield Children’s Hospital, were two of the ambassadors chosen for the promotion of the 10th anniversary celebrations this year and also gave talks at the dinner.